Charitable online donations to Haiti are exposing an enormous "cause and effect" problem.  The cause is that hackers have been stealing our credit and debit card numbers because we are told to type those numbers into boxes on websites. 



Here's the interesting twist.  When card numbers are stolen, (because people type them into boxes in browsers)  many card thieves need to test to see whether the newly acquired/stolen card numbers work.   So what do they do?  They "type" the stolen card number into a box at a charitable website and make a small donation to a charity. 



The effect, is...this behavior has become so prevalent, many banks have blocked first time donations to charity websites. 



The end result is that many online donations to charities helping victims of the Haiti earthquake are being wrongly blocked by banks as fraudulent.  It is fair to say that hackers are indirectly responsible for screwing up our charitable donation process.  (I say indirectly because what's "directly" responsible is typing vs. swiping.)



I wasn't aware of the magnitude of this problem until I started seeing reports cropping up all over the the web about blocked donations.  Everyone knows that the bad guys try and take advantage of natural disasters using phishing, spamming, fake donation websites, etc. 



When I take into accont problems associated with donations to Haiti being blocked by online banking platforms, it make me wonder how much more badly needed money could have gotten into the hands of of those who need it most. Millions? Tens of Millions?



It's bad enough that consumers must worry about being duped by fraudsters, (see related article below)  but when you add to the equation that banks are blocking well-intentioned and genuine charitable donations, the system obviously doesn't work as well as it should...could...and would. 



Did you know that if you used a PCI certified PIN Entry Device to make donations the transaction would never be blocked, and better yet, the money would arrive instantly. 



Oh...and because the card is swiped and the cardholder information is instantly encrypted (and because people are no longer instructed to "type" their card number into a box in a browser) the transaction would be exponentially more secure...meaning that the likelihood that the donated money reaches it's intended target would rise exponentially as well. 

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• Fraud fear blocks Haiti donations (news.bbc.co.uk)


• Hackers Target Online Banking - Video CBS (pindebit.blogspot.com)


• Haiti: Open Up Your Wallet, But Exercise Caution (themoderatevoice.com)